The Volkswagen Polo R5 being tested in September

The announcement of the end of the program WRC from the Wolfsburg manufacturer had dealt a serious blow to the World Rally Championship. But with a strategy now refocused on customer competition, Volkswagen Motorsport has a more than busy schedule at the start of 2017.

TCR Series with the end of development of the new version of the Golf GTi, crowned in the International Series in 2016, engine program in FIA F3, but above all reinforced help on the World RX scene with the support given to Petter Solberg and Johan Kristoffersson who are part of the VW Motorsport panel.

Le rally is not, however, neglected by the German firm, which is developing an R5 version of its Polo, which will be based on the new generation of the production car.

En se servant de l’expérience acquise tant dans la catégorie reine du WRC qu’en WRC-2, via Skoda Motorsport, VW devrait proposer un nouveau produit à la hauteur de ses ambitions pour contrer les Fabia R5, Ford Fiesta R5, Hyundai i20 R5 ou les voitures du groupe PSA. The first tests are scheduled for September 2017.

“I can feel that the employees are extremely involved and motivated to take on the new challenges. » says Sven Smeets, director of Volkswagen Motorsport. The latter also reminds us that the possibility of seeing the 2016 Volkswagen Polo R evolve with customer teams remains current.